There are many ways for musicians to gauge their success. For Ryan Cabrera, it was all about the tour bus.

“In my eyes, that was the coolest thing in the world; it’s all I ever wanted,” Cabrera said in a recent phone interview. “It was like, ‘One day I’m going to get to be in the tour bus’ and you work your way up.”

First came a small van that took Cabrera and his band, Rubix Groove, around from gig to gig in their home state of Texas. The band caught some notable traction, opening for Cheap Trick and Third Eye Blind.

After Rubix Groove achieved RV-level status, Cabrera caught the attention of Joe Simpson, manager and father to Jessica and Ashlee. He left Texas to go live with the Simpsons in California and what was waiting for him in Los Angeles was anyone’s guess.

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“Initially my parents thought I was crazy to have such a rare thing — to be able to sing and perform music for a living. Of course, my parents were concerned.”

Less worried was Papa Joe, who had three pop-star prodigies living under one roof. Jessica was already a reliable hitmaker when Cabrera moved in and soon it was Ashlee’s turn to create. Seeing the marketing potential between the two budding musicians can only be attributed to Joe’s intuition.

Cabrera signed with Atlantic Records and released his first major studio album, “Take It All Away.” Art imitated life when Ashlee appeared as Cabrera’s love interest in the music video for the album’s most successful single, “On the Way Down.” A behind-the-scenes look at the filming of the music video was Cabrera’s first appearance on Ashlee’s new MTV reality show.

Providing a personality behind his music proved successful and the state-of-the-art tour bus soon followed. What Cabrera hadn’t anticipated was becoming a sort of teen idol while in his early 20s, adorning the walls of pubescent girls’ bedrooms with J-14 cutouts sporting his signature spiky blonde hair.

“When you’re making your first album, you have no idea what your demographic is going to be and I always thought it would be 23 and up,” Cabrera chuckled. “It’s funny to be in those magazines and stuff like that. I would just laugh at it.”

It was no laughing matter when Cabrera would receive recognition as a television personality instead of as a singer-songwriter. As he continued to tour and create new music, his girlfriend, Audrina Patridge, begged Cabrera to appear on “The Hills.” He was reluctant to showcase a side of himself that wasn’t based in music, but he eventually appeased her.

After appearing on “The Hills,” Cabrera noticed at his shows “a different kind of crowd, one who normally never heard my music or knew who I was at all. It’s like an ‘I saw you in that’ kind of thing. It felt like a whole different genre of people.”

Cabrera also witnessed firsthand the current state of reality television.

“The breakups and get-back-togethers — that was all for the camera. We’d show up and [the producers] would be like, ‘Today you’re going to break up and we’re going to switch it; you break up with her then she breaks up with you.’ That’s the difference between a show like that nowadays and what television was back when me and Ash had a show. It was free; we just did what we wanted to do.”

Cabrera has left the reality television bubble behind to focus on what’s always been most important to him — the music. He’s putting the finishing touches on his newest album, his first since 2008’s “The Moon Under Water.”

“That one’s definitely a lot different; that was a darker record. I was at a point where I was kind of fed up with everybody in the mix. There’s so many hands trying to tell you what to do, who to look like, how your music should be and I always tried to do the exact opposite.

“I turned in ‘The Moon Under Water’ and they were like, ‘No, this isn’t what we wanted’ and it was a ‘This is what you’re getting’ kind of thing.”

Now 31, Cabrera has left his rebellious nature behind him and works well with those who wish to see him succeed. His music too has developed as he’s matured and he’s looking forward to giving audiences at the Sellersville Theater on Feb. 1 a taste of the old hits and a sampling of what’s to come.